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Writing Tools – The Perils of Spell Check
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I’m not going to tell you not to use spell check. Spell check is the writer’s best friend but sometimes our worst enemy. It can replace a misspelled word with a correctly spelled word and jump to the next misspelling faster than a human editor. But I think that speed is one of the biggest dangers in spell check – one click can replace a word, but it doesn’t make you stop and read the word in context. And the tool doesn’t understand context as well as a human reader will. If you are preparing to submit a work to a publisher, a human proof reader is a wise investment. Even if you just bribe a friend with a sharp eye to read for chocolate.
During my writing career I’ve come across a number of fun spelling errors that were either the result of spell check or not caught by spell check. I thought I’d share some of my favorites.
People of African decent. (descent)
This one went out in a corporate memo. And then out again corrected after a quick email to area issuing the memo. Mistakes don’t just happen in fiction.
She put on her fowl-weather gear. (foul)
Obviously what Donald Duck wears during a rain storm. I came across this one in a nearly perfect manuscript I was editing. Even nearly perfect authors sometimes use the wrong word.
He knew he had a strong urn for her. (yearn)
Apparently one of those fatal love stories. This was my favorite from a manuscript where the author had relied on spell check far too often.
She stood there feeling beret. (bereft)
Being dumped makes a woman feel like a French hat. An example of writing above one’s vocabulary. The writer wanted a fancy word used in romance novels and made it to within one letter of the correct word.
He’d staked the books along the wall. (stacked)
Darn those vampire books. Proof that I’m not immune to the problem and a reminder that we often don’t see our own mistakes.
Now as writers, we see these mistakes, chuckle and fill in the correct words. But when a beta-reader asked me to explain how my character had staked the books, it drove home an important point. Readers trust us to use the correct word and read exactly what we have written. When you rely on spell check, you may mislead the reader. So find some friends with sharp eyes and stock up on chocolate.
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